^^It's not that I think you are wrong here. I just feel that particular opinion piece is begging for criticism. You have to at least admit to the viciousness of his words. It's very offensive to see a great talent publicly degraded and called not legitimate. Can you understand that at least. What purpose does it serve and how does it benefit figure skating as a whole? The article suggests that is his intent does it not?

^^It's not that I think you are wrong here. I just feel that particular opinion piece is begging for criticism. You have to at least admit to the viciousness of his words. It's very offensive to see a great talent publicly degraded and called not legitimate. Can you understand that at least. What purpose does it serve and how does it benefit figure skating as a whole? The arrival suggests that is his intent does it not?

jessie helms is over the top.. that's why i don't take his/her seriously.. this is not the first time...

He is a fine writer ! but this reporter, who does not seem to be a skating specialist but to have marked political positions, picks up its information from very oriented sources, his words are outrageous, borrowing the style of preaching : you can read in the article http://voices.yahoo.com/cinquanta-ne...12585405.html: "It was time to end the root of evil". My God !
again in his article http://voices.yahoo.com/a-solution-s...116.html?cat=9
"the future of figure skating as a sport looks abysmal, steep in corruption and lack of leadership" : but all along he says the contrary : so lack of leadership or bad leadership (which is a leadership)?
Then he puts 1972 Olympic bronze medalist Janet Lynn on a pedestal...and " it's our heritage in jeopardy!": we can't compare skating at this time to the 21st century, almost 40 years later.
He opposes the "old supremacy of American ladies" (especially artistic) and technical requirements of the new system, "which results in a penalty to current U.S. skaters" ... "Ironically the regression of U.S. ladies skaters coincided with two major scandals-Salt Lake and Sochi. In appearance, the U.S. ladies failed to keep up with the demand on technicality imposed by the COP system.": he forgets to say that Hugues won at Salt Lake City, and that there was a collapse in the level and results of the russian ladies after Turin 2006 (Slutsakaia 3rd) under the new ISU system, and forgets also that a high level of new generation of Russian ladies arose a year before Sochi. We can not deny the value of Sotnikova, Lipnistkaia, Tukthamisheva, Radionova, Pogorilaya etc.
He criticizes Russian juniorism in Sochi...and he forgets Lipinsky winning gold for the USA at the age of 15.
Patriotism and blind point of view : "the lack of long U.S. ladies skaters in top notch gave way to the corruption of the ISU, because the ladies figure skating history is a history of U.S. ladies figure skating "!! but History is evolution ! Does he mean that US ladies shoud win all the time just because of US ladies figure skating heritage ? that Arakawa did not deserve her gold medal in Turin? and then he notes the values of Kim , Asada and Kostner able to manage with all the requirements: they are neither american nor russian !
and the question remains: there was a scandal in Sochi, but was there a real basis other than politics, so a lot of noise for nothing ?

I don't really get the point of that article. He seems to be saying the CoP system is bad because it knocked American ladies off the top of the sport, instead of suggesting that American ladies need to up their game. I like the CoP system overall, and we've seen it enhance many programs' artistic qualities, rather than reducing them to jump sessions.

^*And yeah, I get frustrations with juniorism in general, but the judges apply junior judging selectively, which is a separate issue. Polina Edmunds is just as good as any of the Russian teenagers in her technical abilities. She is one of the few skaters who does a lutz and a flip consistently with correct technique. There's a question about how the component scores, and GOEs are going to play out in such a deep field. If there is a Russian-hype bias behind the judging, then maybe this Yahoo guy will have a point.

This guy is just the typical Russophobe that is having a pity party I guess because the Russian girls are set to be strong in the upcoming years.

But really the young girls haven't been exactly dominating these recent competitions. Mao, Kostner, Yuna etc are all older. The USA's older girls just aren't as good as them. And Edmunds being the cream of a thin crop of young girls compared to Russia's stable is pretty shaky.

So it really amounts to being a hit piece on Yulia. And I guess girls like Radionova and Proklova. That are able to combine youth, jumping, flexibility.

Woop de doo! Yuri Balkov is a Ukrainian. Anyone with half of a brain knows he cheats for Russia because he hails from a former Soviet country.

As far as Ice Dancing goes, no one is denying that there are many ice dancing legends from Russia, but Russian Ice dancing results (ie the number of gold medals) are still fantastical if they weren't rigged. Don't ever forget that the old ISU system was changed to combat Russian corruption.

Take a world wide poll (amongst countries where figure skating is popular) and everyone except for the Russians (and former Soviet countries) will agree that the Russian have cheated more than anyone other country by a landslide.

If in the end the South Korean federation is successful in making sure that judging panels cannot be stacked with people from former Soviet countries and people with Russian last names, it'll probably be the biggest steps towards fairness anyone takes except for dismantling the entire scoring system.

This guy is just the typical Russophobe that is having a pity party I guess because the Russian girls are set to be strong in the upcoming years.

But really the young girls haven't been exactly dominating these recent competitions. Mao, Kostner, Yuna etc are all older. The USA's older girls just aren't as good as them. And Edmunds being the cream of a thin crop of young girls compared to Russia's stable is pretty shaky.

So it really amounts to being a hit piece on Yulia. And I guess girls like Radionova and Proklova. That are able to combine youth, jumping, flexibility.

A clean Gracie Gold and Polina are just as good as any of the Russians. We haven't seen them compete head to head that much yet. A lot of Yulia's success in the past season was without steep American competition. I think the problem has been letting skaters like Wagner and Mirai hang on to the top of the field based on seniority.

The Yahoo article is really quite absurd. The author equates "ladies figure skating" with American princesses Peggy Fleming, Janet Lynn, and Dorothy Hamill (with a half-nod to latter day countesses Kristi Yamaguchi, Nancy Kerrigan, and Michelle Kwan). Somehow the USFSA was asleep at the switch and allowed youthful Russian athletes to sneak in there and, wielding the CoP, to take over. Lamentations and woe.

A clean Gracie Gold and Polina are just as good as any of the Russians. We haven't seen them compete head to head that much yet. A lot of Yulia's success in the past season was without steep American competition. I think the problem has been letting skaters like Wagner and Mirai hang on to the top of the field based on seniority.

This isn't a thread that should go in depth into Yulia vs the world. Go to the Artistry and Scoring amongst youngsters thread for that. In short Yulia beat all three Americans in every competition she faced them in except Olympic individuals where Gracie eeked by with a generous score herself.

Look , I'm not trying to overhype her or rub anyone's nose in her success here. I just take extreme offense to her being called a non legitimate talent. All of Russian skating was thrown in there too. That is just wrong and something should be done about this type of writing.

This isn't a thread that should go in depth into Yulia vs the world. Go to the Artistry and Scoring amongst youngsters thread for that. In short Yulia beat all three Americans in every competition she faced them in except Olympic individuals where Gracie eeked by with a generous score herself.

Look , I'm not trying to overhype her or rub anyone's nose in her success here. I just take extreme offense to her being called a non legitimate talent. All of Russian skating was thrown in there too. That is just wrong and something should be done about this type of writing.

I just don't understand why you see saying Gold and Edmunds are just as good or talented as any of the Russians as such a huge insult against Yulia or any other Russian ladies, not to mention taking extreme offense to this statement.